


Contractual Obligation

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [46]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 22:08:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15694311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “You just madeforty million dollars?” Jared says.“Thirty-nine,” Bryce says. “And like, over the next six years, so—”“Forty million dollars,” Jared says, and finds himself laughing, a little hysterical. “Million.”





	Contractual Obligation

When Bryce texts him with _cum over as soon as u can?_ , Jared has a feeling that the contract’s been signed. He checks his phone a few times on his way — before he starts the car and after he gets there, he’s not a maniac — but there’s nothing, so maybe he’s wrong. Or maybe he’s getting like, the inside scoop.

Bryce is grinning like the maniac Jared isn’t when he gets inside, so yeah, Jared’s pretty sure he signed it.

“Terms?” Jared asks.

“Six years,” Bryce says. “Thirty-nine million.”

Jared…cannot process that number.

“You just made _forty million dollars_?” Jared says.

“Thirty-nine,” Bryce says. “And like, over the next six years, so—”

“Forty million dollars,” Jared says, and finds himself laughing, a little hysterical. “ _Million_.”

“Right?” Bryce says, grinning.

“Jesus,” Jared says. “That’s like. Jesus. That’s more than —” More than a lot of things, obviously. Like. Literally anything _less_ than that. And yet he just can’t fathom it. That is winning that massive lottery kind of money. Normal people don’t see that. Jared’s never going to see that.

Of course, that all leaves his mouth, because why not. Why the fuck not.

“You could make that,” Bryce says.

“No way I’m going to make that kind of money,” Jared says.

“Why not?” Bryce asks.

“Let’s not bullshit, here,” Jared says, and when Bryce frowns, “Like, just do the math with me. First three years I’m going to be making entry-level money, and who even knows when that’s going to start, if I’m going to do it from nineteen or twenty or twenty-one or what. If I even get signed.”

“Jared,” Bryce says.

“And say like, absolute amazing best case scenario I make like, a couple million consistently coming out of that,” Jared says. “That’s like, another twenty years on top of that. Which like, no one does, I’m not going to be kicking around the league in my early forties.”

“I’m — sorry?” Bryce says. “I — I took what my agent said I should take.”

“Oh shit,” Jared says, realising his mouth has fucked everything up again. “I’m not like — it’s just hard for me to like, imagine that much money? I was just, I dunno, calculating out loud. It just seems like an impossible amount to me.”

An impossible amount the Flames are now legally obligated to pay Bryce, and seriously. _Thirty-nine million dollars_. Jared can’t even begin to visualise that, but for Bryce, it’s payment due.

“I think you could make more than two million—” Bryce says.

“Did I say congratulations?” Jared says.

“Um,” Bryce says. “No?”

Jared is officially the worst boyfriend of all time.

“Congratulations,” he says. “Sorry, my brain went all — numbers on me. We should celebrate, obviously.”

“Yeah?” Bryce says.

“I mean, considering you’re not going to have another one of these days for six years, yeah,” Jared says.

What Bryce wants to do to celebrate is take Jared to an obnoxiously expensive restaurant, and Jared can’t even complain, because he’s been a jerk, so he’s like, penitent. Penitently eating a sixty dollar steak, because Bryce started frowning really hard when Jared weakly suggested getting a (much cheaper) salad. Though like, you can only go so cheap when the fucking _soup_ is sixteen bucks.

God, if someone else said they were penitently eating an expensive steak, Jared would be absolutely obligated to make a jerking off motion in their direction, and yet here he is. Penitently eating that damn steak.

The steak is so delicious it infuriates him.

“I always wanted to try this place,” Bryce says. “But it felt like, I dunno, a special occasion place, so.”

Jared feels itchy here: he’s wearing like, a polo and khakis, which wouldn’t be underdressed most places, but feels underdressed here, especially since Bryce is still in the dress shirt and pants he presumably signed the contract in. Bryce doesn’t seem to be worried about it. Probably because, even though the place is packed, the hostess clearly recognised him and got them a table like, five minutes later. Considering they probably dumped someone’s reservation, Jared guesses it doesn’t matter to them if he’s underdressed.

He feels — he doesn’t know. Itchy, like he said, and prickly with it, finds himself looking around after every bite to see if someone’s watching them, if anyone’s recognised Bryce. It’s one thing for them to eat together at like, a mid-price restaurant, but this is the kind of swank where you’d assume stuff. It’s all couples as far as the eye can see, maybe a few families with adult children. Jared’s the youngest person here, and Bryce is probably the second youngest. People must have noticed them, and if they know who Bryce is, they’d have to wonder.

“What’s up?” Bryce asks, after Jared looks around again.

“Wouldn’t it be weird if someone snapped a picture of you with an Oiler?” Jared asks.

“I mean, you haven’t played for them yet,” Bryce says. “And it’s not like guys on rival teams haven’t been friends before.”

“Right,” Jared says. “Friends.”

“Jared,” Bryce says.

“Sorry,” Jared says. “We’re friends. Totally.”

“What do you want me to say, here?” Bryce asks. 

Jared knows exactly what he wants Bryce to say, but he also knows he isn’t going to say it. And honestly — he doesn’t even want to come out to the public, he doesn’t know why this gets under his skin so badly, Bryce saying they can’t do something Jared doesn’t even _want_ to.

“Nothing,” Jared says. “It doesn’t matter, let’s just — let’s just eat.”

“Sure,” Bryce mumbles, picking at his veg, and seriously, Jared could literally not be stomping on his day worse right now, could he.

“My steak’s really good,” Jared says, a tentative olive branch.

“Yeah,” Bryce says, and Jared blows out a breath, digs back in, because he’s not about to let a fucking sixty dollar steak go to waste, as shitty as he feels now. Though Bryce can easily afford that and more, now. Sixty bucks is a drop in the bucket when you’re making six and a half _million_.

“I’m sorry I’m being a dick,” Jared says, when the silence stretches to unbearable. “I don’t even know why I’m doing it.”

“You aren’t,” Bryce says, and his long held guess is confirmed, pretty much: Bryce is a shitty liar. And Jared is being a dick, but he knew that already.

“Bryce,” Jared says. “I’m sorry, okay?”

“It’s fine,” Bryce says, also clearly a lie, and even if he’d said it convincingly, the way he’s pushing his food around his plate would be enough to expose him.

Jared reads all this shit about food ‘turning into ashes in your mouth’ or whatever when you feel like crap, but it’s not true. The steak remains delicious, even though he’s having trouble getting it down. At least eating keeps him from saying more shit that upsets Bryce.

They don’t stick around for dessert, obviously.

“Um,” Bryce says, when they get outside, then, tentative, “My place?”

“I think I should just head home?” Jared says. “I mean, I can take a bus if you don’t want to give me a ride, that’s cool.”

“Oh,” Bryce says. “No, I — I can drive you.”

“I’m not like — I want to head home so I don’t ruin your day any worse,” Jared says when they get in the car, because he hates how Bryce looks right now, tight mouth, posture tense. Somehow it’s both easier and harder to talk when he’s facing the side of Bryce’s head, when Bryce can’t look at him if he wants to focus on the road. “Since apparently like, that’s inevitable at this point.”

“I just don’t know why you’re mad at me,” Bryce mumbles.

“I’m not,” Jared says. “I’m really not, I just — fuck. I just — it hits me sometimes that you’re like, a big fucking deal who’s like, worth a lot of money? And like, obviously I know that intellectually, I watch your damn games, you _should_ be a big fucking deal, but sometimes I’m like—”

“What?” Bryce asks.

“I just, like, most of the time you’re just my boyfriend, you know? Like, not _just_ my boyfriend, but that’s how I think of you,” Jared says. “And then it’s like — you’re so good they want to pay you over six million a year and the hostess totally bumped someone’s reservation because you showed up, and any second someone could have taken a picture of us, and I don’t like, know how to deal with that, I dunno. That doesn’t really make sense when I say it out loud.”

“I mean,” Bryce says. “I get it, kinda?”

More lying, but Jared can’t hold Bryce not getting it against him, because he barely gets it either. Like, he wasn’t even _thinking_ about it before he said it. He doesn’t think he’s _ever_ really thought about it. Except apparently that’s not true, because it came out pretty fucking fast once he opened his mouth. The subconscious is weird. Also a bitch.

“You’re not driving me home,” Jared observes, instead, because Bryce is pretty clearly heading in the direction of his place.

“I don’t want you thinking like, you’re ruining my day,” Bryce says. “If you talk about what’s bugging you. And like, this is bugging you, so.”

“I basically commandeered your entire celebration to be a dick,” Jared says. “How is that not ruining your day?”

“I don’t want to celebrate if you’re not up for it,” Bryce says, and like — everything Bryce says continues to make Jared feel like a shittier and shittier boyfriend, because Bryce is so fucking _good_ at it, thoughtful and patient and kind and all these things Jared isn’t. If Jared was the one signing that contract, he can guaran-fucking-tee that Bryce wouldn’t have started being an asshole and made everything about him. And Jared didn’t even _mean_ to, it just — happened.

It’s a shitty excuse, and he knows it.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he’s pretty sure he needs to keep saying it.

“It’s okay,” Bryce says.

“It really isn’t,” Jared says. “You don’t deserve to be dealing with my shit.”

“That’s kind of part of being your boyfriend,” Bryce says. “You deal with _my_ shit.”

“It’s not the same,” Jared says. 

“Why not?” Bryce asks.

“Because I’m way worse at dealing with your shit,” Jared says. “And you’re like, fucking great about it, always, and way more like — ”

“It’s not a contest,” Bryce says.

“I know, I’m just like — apparently a terrible boyfriend, so,” Jared says.

“You’re not,” Bryce says, and that doesn’t sound like Bryce lying, but just because Bryce doesn’t believe it doesn’t mean that isn’t true.

“I’m sorry,” Jared says again, and it keeps sounding emptier and emptier, like he’s taking the lazy way out. 

“It’s okay,” Bryce says, and Jared doesn’t know if he’s imagining that Bryce sounds tired of saying it. Jared’s even fucking up apologising.

Jared hesitates when Bryce parks, and apparently it’s obvious even before he opens his mouth to say anything, because Bryce says, “You don’t have to come up if you don’t want to,” which basically suddenly makes it completely necessary that he comes up, because Bryce sounds, like, preemptively hurt about it.

_Can I come home an hour late for curfew?_ , Jared texts his mom while Bryce goes to change out of his suit, because it’s creeping closer by degrees, and he doesn’t want to keep looking at his phone, worried he’ll have to cut things off before he fixes them. _this sounds really dumb but I basically screwed up Bryce’s entire day and I’m trying to stop being a crappy boyfriend right now._

_One hour_ , his mom texts back, and then, to Jared’s _Thank you thank you thank you_ , adds _I mean it! One hour! You have to train in the morning!_

Bryce comes out in basketball shorts and a t-shirt, and it’s weird, because it feels easier to look at him like that, the shell of the suit shucked off, him looking — comfortable, but more than that, because Jared’s never even seen him leave the house dressed like this, always putting on like, dressier stuff or whatever, even in summer. It’s a Bryce the public doesn’t get to see, and apparently Jared really needed to see that right now.

“You want something to drink or something?” Bryce asks. “I’ve got like, water, and—”

“Come sit?” Jared says, rather than remind Bryce that he knows exactly what’s in his fridge, and they’ve been at the point where Jared just grabs what he needs for like, probably nine months.

“I just got my mom to extend my curfew a bit?” Jared says, when Bryce does, very aware of where Bryce chose to sit. It’ seems like a good sign that it’s close enough that their knees brush. 

“Okay?” Bryce says, sounding confused.

“I didn’t want to like, have to run out when things were unresolved,” Jared says, which sounds _really fucking stupid_ when he says it aloud, considering he was planning on going home after dinner.

“Unresolved,” Bryce says, and he sounds wary now.

“I’m like, warning you in advance, chances are at least fifty percent I fuck this up worse right now because my mouth is a hazard,” Jared says. “Which you are obviously aware of.”

Bryce smiles a bit. “I like it okay,” he says.

“I, you know, sucked today,” Jared says, and shushes Bryce when he tries to argue, yet again. “But like, congrats? It’s a big deal.” And a lot of money, but Jared’s not going to say that one out loud. Gets way too close to the first — and far from last — his mouth got away with him today. “And like, even if I’m not going to be in Calgary for like, the next six years, I’m glad you will be.”

“I wish you were too,” Bryce says.

“Me too,” Jared says. “And maybe that’s like — I don’t know, maybe that’s part of why I’m being a dick? I dunno, my head’s weird right now, I don’t even get what’s going on in it. I’m sorry I took shit out on you.”

“I mean, I’m kind of living your dream,” Bryce says.

“It’s not that?” Jared says. “Well, maybe it is a little, I don’t know. Like, I’m not going to lie, it kind of — sucks, not to have that, I wasn’t really expecting to go to the Flames, but — apparently I did? Kind of? Like, probability wise it made no sense, but—”

“I thought I’d be a Canuck,” Bryce says. “I really wanted to be a Canuck. I know how you’re feeling right now.”

He doesn’t, not really. Well, that part, but Bryce didn’t have a boyfriend who was unquestionably more talented than him, wealthier, who was going to be in his city long after he left. He’s not even — Bryce loves him, he knows that, but it was hard enough to make time when they were playing for two teams in the same city. What’s it going to be like if Jared’s three hundred kilometres away in Edmonton? If he’s twenty five _hundred_ kilometres away in Bakersfield? Bryce is going to be here for six more years, in the epicentre, the place Jared was born and raised and loves, and Jared’s — nowhere. He doesn’t have the first clue where he’s going to be, or how long he’ll have Bryce waiting for him back in Calgary.

Jared doesn’t say any of that, and he’s dimly proud of himself, but mostly kind of disgusted with himself for even thinking it. Bryce doesn’t need to hear about his apparently numerous fucking insecurities. The words want to come out though, those, or some other ones, something that’ll inevitably be ugly, make things worse, so Jared bites them back, kisses Bryce, and things — well, also go inevitably.

It probably isn’t like, the _right_ thing, exactly, to reach towards fixing things with sex, but at least he’s not making things worse, and this is one thing he doesn’t screw up on a regular basis.

It’s easier, when he isn’t saying anything, trying — and very much failing — to convey like, that he’s happy for Bryce, and that he cares about him, and all that stuff Bryce does so effortlessly and Jared stumbles over. It’s so, so much easier to do that through touch, and he thinks Bryce gets it. He hopes Bryce gets it.

It feels like whatever was in the air, unpleasantly physical, has dissipated a bit now that they’re in the safety of Bryce’s bedroom, like Jared can breathe a little easier, trace his fingers over the line of Bryce’s clavicle, sternum, pecs, map him out with fingers and mouth, the familiar planes of his body a little more substantial during the offseason, hard muscle, the flex of Bryce’s delts under his hands as Bryce rolls him onto his back, effortless — the guy probably hasn’t skipped a weight lifting session in his entire life.

Jared doesn’t say a single fucking word, not even Bryce’s name, muffles anything he might want to say against Bryce’s mouth, and for awhile, he feels okay again.

It lasts awhile after too, that come dumb endorphin rush, the only things Jared says a mumbled ‘thanks’ when Bryce heads to the bathroom, returns with a wet wash cloth, a ‘c’mere’ when Bryce doesn’t immediately return to arm’s reach. Lasts awhile, but curfew extension aside, Jared does have training in the morning.

“I should go,” Jared says, though he’s reluctant, things better now, at least for the moment, while they lay skin to skin.

“I thought you said you got your curfew extended,” Bryce says.

“Yeah, but I don’t have the car,” Jared says. “And buses come kind of sporadically at this hour.”

“That’s stupid,” Bryce says. “You know I’ll drive you home.”

_I don’t even remotely deserve you,_ Jared thinks, and it’s doubly true, because he knows if he said it out loud, Bryce would immediately disagree, like he doesn’t even know how good he is.

Jared presses his mouth to Bryce’s knuckles, a little chapped under his lips. “I’m—”

“If you say sorry…” Bryce says. 

“This is the part where you’re supposed to threaten me with something,” Jared says, when Bryce doesn’t continue.

“Just stop saying sorry, okay?” Bryce says.

“Okay,” Jared says. “Can I say congratulations again? Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Bryce says. “That’s okay.”

“Okay,” Jared says. “Congratulations. Really.”

“Thanks,” Bryce says, and Jared closes his eyes when Bryce strokes his thumb down the line of his jaw, pulls him closer.


End file.
